Hey guys, listen to this:

Major Panic In WWE Over RAW Ratings, Future Of RAW On USA

There is panic in the WWE locker room concerning the slumping RAW ratings. As most of you know by now, Monday’s edition of RAW which featured the return of Shawn Michaels only did a 2.8 cable rating. For those that do not remember, there was a glitch in the ratings a couple of months back that caused the RAW rating to report at a low 2.5, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with this week’s low rating.

To further add to the stress of the low ratings, WWE has not been on the best of terms with the USA Network lately. Bonnie Hammer, an executive for the USA Network and the person that spearheaded the movement to bring RAW back to USA from Spike TV, has been sending the WWE RAW Creative Team 10-20 suggestions on a regular basis. From what we have heard, Vince McMahon reads these ideas, passes them along to Stephanie, who gives them to Head RAW Creative Team member Brian Gewirtz. It is said that Gewirtz basically goes over all of them and buries them in front of the entire Creative Team. One of the reasons WWE has not considered a single idea from Hammer is because they are insecure about someone else’s ideas working better than what they came up with.

Perhaps the scariest thing out of all of this is that the three year deal that WWE signed with USA/NBC/Universal on April 4, 2005 comes due shortly after next year’s WrestleMania. While RAW has done well enough to prevent the USA Network from cancelling them (WWE has allowed USA to become the number-one ranked cable network and without them they’d lose that spot), they have not delivered the numbers that the USA Network expected when the deal was signed and those were upper 4’s and 5’s. The show has been performing in the mid to low 3’s and did in the high 2’s this past week.

Furthermore this gives WWE very little leverage for negotiations and may cause them to sign a deal worth significantly less than what they signed three years ago. With the company basically giving up on pay-per-view to be their single main revenue generator in favor of television rights and fees it could affect the bottom line. While not all negative, the future outlook is not positive.

credit: wrestlingattitude.com

Well let me ask you this:

Should WWE move RAW to the CW or perhaps try to convince Time Warner to put RAW on TBS?

But I don't think that they should go back to SPIKE b/c SPIKE and the WWE hate each other, and I don't think that WWE should move to Superstation WGN, b/c WGN is a Family Network and they don't need all that Sex and all that other stuff (unless of TNA signs with WGN), but other than that, I don't think that RAW will stay on USA much long, unless if they decide to move RAW to USA's sister network Sci-Fi.

and that's my take on that.

If it stoped coming on usa network does that mean it wouldnet have a coment board here just wondering.

I assume so .

If they had a new network then the forum would just move to another website.

The landscape of the entertainment industry at large is changing and will continue to do so. The rapid growth of the Internet and other innovations are the primary sources for this. I don't have the article in front of me, but I recall reading that television viewership is down as a whole.

As for the WWE, they still deliver the targeted male demographics for their advertisers. I doubt we'll ever see RAW score ratings in the 4s and 5s again but they are still holding their own with 3s on a steady basis. I for one would not like to see a day when the WWE would be dropped from USA or any other network and have no other option but to show their programs on WWE24/7.